Sitting at home with myself, part 2

[~¤DG¤~]

Navy- I am so happy for you.
Just keep up the good work and I pray you two will live happily ever after.

[2stepboogie]

Been thinking about you Navy. I am glad to see you guys are moving along. Keeping you in my prayers

[Navyguy]

Things are still moving along, slowly but surely. Interactions between us have been overwhelmingly positive.

Last night W told me she is going to go back to IC. I wanted to ask her if she'd considered MC yet, but I held my tongue...her terms, her pace.

[Navyguy]

Well, I made my first mistake today. Not a huge one, but nonetheless...

I was taking D to the cherry blossom festival and when we were saying goodbye to W I reached out and touched her arm as I was saying goodbye. She didn't say anything but I knew right away it was a mistake and could tell she wasn't too crazy about it. I later apologized and told her I shouldn't have done it.

[Navyguy]

Very stressed today...I feel like things regressed a little bit yesterday. W built a fire out back last night and we sat out there for awhile. We were both pretty quiet. I was very close to bringing up R talk, but managed not to. I just felt a lot of tension last night...didn't sleep well last night and am still stressed today.

[Harrier]

You touched her arm. Yeah, maybe she's not ready yet. I know it's too late, but I wouldn't apologize for small as I think it just brings more attention to it.

Funny about the "regression" you will feel that a lot at times. Sometimes, it's real, sometimes it's in your head.

As far as the sitting there quiet.Just try to enjoy your W's presence. Our MC told my W and I that couples just need sometime where there are no expectations (of even a talk) and just being in each others' presence. It might be a lot of work for your W just to be in the same area as you even w/o chatting.

[Navyguy]

Thanks Harrier, as usual, I think your advice is spot on.

It was really weird...when I apologized for touching her arm, I felt like I had touched it again. Just like you said, I drew unnecessary attention to it. She was already over it, but I reopened the wound (albeit a small one).

I am guessing that the "regression" I am feeling is probably a mixture of in my head and real. Anytime I felt this way before I would always prod W into a R talk... and that played a huge part in driving her out the door. I HAVE to stay patient and positive and let things happen at her speed.

I guarantee that you are exactly right when you say it is a lot of work for her to be in the same area as me...she has even told me that before when she says "if I wasn't working on things I would have left you". I have to get rid of my expectations...or at a minimum, keep them inside.

[Redo]

Navy: Just from experience. In '09 when wife left for 6 months and came back, i had no idea how to bring 'normalcy' into our lives. There were lots and lots of awkward moments like the one you described. Over time i just got more and more stressed about how and where our relationship was heading. Wife felt the same apparently but we never brought things up. Eventually she formed all this crazy stuff in her head that things are not gonna work out and by 2010 she finally filed for D.

If there's one thing i would have done differently in 2009 after she came back: I would done lot of the "act as if" attitude from DB. It would have changed lot of stuff for us. Try 'acting as if', like happy, jovial, make life fun for you guys. Don't allow awkward moments of silence, quiet times spent seperately, apologizing and bringing back wounds. Dont do any of those. Move on jovially, act like everything is great. I think then you will start believing in positiveness in your relationship. I am sure this will catch on with your wife and she will see how 'fun' it is hanging out with you and might reciprocate in manner. Then build on that positive momentum. Please do not wait on some miracle that's gonna happen and all of a sudden these awkward moments will come to an end. Believe me i did this. Things just got worse for me and i am where i am right now.

[Harrier]

Karma,

Where you in MC at all? For us that always seemed to be the place where those types of issues came up. Granted I'm not in the same position as you or NG. My W never moved out, but there were/are moments of awkwardness.

NG - I kinda adopted the "as if" approach w/o realizing it. It's hard a times. (and I f'ed this up at times too) But a few things helped me.

1. I had 100% faith my wife's small physical affections would come back. They did and are still coming back.
2. I tried to take stock of all the positive interactions with my W no matter how small. so then if I got derailed, I could see what she had done.
2. I tried to suggest more fun weekend activities with the family. It's a lot easier to be happy when you are doing fun things.
3. Play with my kids helps a lot. hard to be down when they are dog-piling on top of you.

these help my mind take the focus of the interactions, at least for awhile.

[Redo]

Nope. No MC. Always in individual counseling. Wife somehow thought that because of my childhood issues only i had issues and that she was okay. I wished that we went to MC right after she came back. I did not push for it because i always thought only i had problems...

It is very good that Navy is doing the MC.

sorry for hijacking thread.